VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (letter).

Hate-filled cartoons

February 23, 2006|By Edward F. Wilt Jr.

McHenry — This is regarding "When cartoons inflame; Influential and acerbic cartoonist Pat Oliphant, no stranger to controversy, writes about the impact of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons on his profession" (Perspective, Feb. 19). By publishing Oliphant's reprehensible cartoon showing a Catholic Church named "St. Paedophilia," you have succeeded in offending every thoughtful Catholic in my acquaintance.

Oliphant states that he accomplishes his aims "without resorting to gratuitous ridicule of their religion or the icons attached to it." I imagine he thinks that by naming a Catholic Church "St. Paedophilia," his cartoon falls within those parameters.

It would seem that Catholics are becoming the only religious group that can be lampooned and safely offended in America.

Such hate-filled cartoons targeting religions and minority groups were a regular feature of Nazi Germany during Hitler's rise to power, and to see such unbridled offensiveness in a family newspaper today is disquieting, to say the least.